Anatomy of Deceit: How the Bush Administration Used the Media to Sell the War and Smear a Critic

Expected Shipping Date: January 19th, 2007

What happens when Washington, D.C. pundits and journalists run in the same social circles as the people they cover? When the President and his administration trade press access for loyalty? The public gets a complicit, uncritical press greasing the skids to a brutal war, outing a CIA agent, and muddying the waters of a grand jury investigation. In the fearful aftermath of 9/11, much of America’s pride — its free press — became an unquestioning propaganda arm.

Marcy Wheeler’s Anatomy of Deceit documents how the media promoted the Administration’s justification for war — that Iraq was on the verge of acquiring weapons of mass destruction — even though it had no basis in reality. And it provides a play-by-play account of how Vice President Dick Cheney’s office first used the media to target a critic, former Ambassador Joe Wilson, and then to avoid criminal charges in the CIA leak case.

While the media was beating the drums of war and cozying up to the administration, citizen journalists were digging for the truth. Wheeler's compelling account tells the story, as it needs to be told — from outside the Beltway's cocktail circuit.